A progressive political blog that highlights the infringement of religion upon today’s government.

To promote tolerance, a diversity group in Oklahoma bestowed gifts on Oklahoma lawmakers, copies of the Quaran. At least 18 of the state legislators will return the books. They feel that the Quaran condones killing innocent people. State Representative, Rex Duncan stated;

“most Oklahomans do not endorse the idea of killing innocent women and children in the name of ideology.”

The state’s Governor’s Ethnic American Advisory Council’s chairwoman disagrees with Duncan stating that Islam is a religion, not an ideology and it is “very peaceful, very inclusive.”

I hope that they are all indignant about Christian bibles they may come into contact with. They should be very disturbed then at the proliferation of the Christian religion and it’s holy book considering that it condones not only murder but rape! The following passages show how the Christian bible, using the same standards these ignorant lawmakers did, should be denounced.

Judges 21:10-24 NLT- Murder and rape
Numbers 31:7-18 NLT- Murder and rape
Deuteronomy 20:10-14- Murder and rape
Deuteronomy 22:28-29 NLT- Laws for rape
Deuteronomy 22:23-24 NAB- Killing rape victims
2 Samuel 12:11-14 NAB- Murder (of a child) and rape
Deuteronomy 21:10-14 NAB- Rape
Judges 5:30 NAB- Rape during war
Zechariah 14:1-2 NAB- God assisting with rape
2 Chronicles 15:12-13 NAB- Kill all nonbelievers ****
Deuteronomy 13:13-19 NLT- Kill everyone in a city if one of them worships another god****
Deuteronomy 13:7-12 NAB- Kill those who follow other religions****

These are just a few examples. I encourage you to go to EvilBible.com for a more complete list. Notice that the ones that I starred seem alarmingly similar to the passages in the Quaran that these bigoted legislators took issue with. Interesting, I can’t wait for the cries of outrage when they realize that our country is filled with followers of a god who condones murder.

Mitt Romney in a speech stated;

“Actually, just look at what Osam - Barack Obama - said just yesterday. Barack Obama, calling on radicals, jihadists of all different types, to come together in Iraq. That is the battlefield. … It’s almost as if the Democratic contenders for president are living in fantasyland. Their idea for jihad is to retreat, and their idea for the economy is to also retreat. And in my view, both efforts are wrongheaded.”

Romney was apparently referring to an audio take supposedly recorded by Osama Bin Laden released the day before. I understand that mistakes happen but this seems a little fishy to me. It was during a time when he was criticizing the dems for their foreign relations and economic stances. It just seems to me that this time it is more than a simple mistake. I would go so far as to say I believe it was a well thought out “mix-up”.

The conservative right, who are not all that great thinking on their own, are easily led astray by clever word games. Even if they understand that Obama is in no way affiliated with Osama they will still see that there is a lot alike in the two names so he must at least be soft on terrorism if not involved himself.

The deceptive word play is a tactic that the Right adheres to almost religiously so we shouldn’t be surprised by this. Apparently Obama’s camp weren’t surprised either. Spokesman Bill Burten had this to say;

“Apparently, Mitt Romney can switch names just as casually as he switches positions, but what’s wrongheaded is continuing a misguided war in Iraq that has left America less safe.”

Like a true leader Chris Dodd is gathering supporters for his courageous stand for civil liberties. As we reported on 2 days ago Chris Dodd is fighting to prevent passage of a deeply flawed FISA bill which includes, among other things, retroactive immunity for telecoms who broke the law when assisting the governments domestic spying program. His stand was immediately joined by Feingold and Biden, but others have been slower to join the cause.

Why anyone would support blanket immunity before we begin investigations into the depth of the abuses is incomprehensible. The abuses against American citizens’ 4th amendment rights began at least 7 months prior to 9/11 and were obviously of no use in preventing that attack. This is a situation that demands a serious investigation to determine the scope of our governments abuses; an investigation that will never happen once immunity is granted. Which is why our administration is pushing so hard for the immunity, because they know that if we start investigating we will discover massive breaches of laws and constitutional rights.

This is why I am relieved to finally see the top two Democratic contenders step up and start showing their support. While slow it is still better than not at all. This bill is a travesty of justice and I am surprised that more Democrats have not shown the leadership and good judgment to stand against it. Via Greg Sargent at TPM here are two quotes from Obama and Hillary on supporting the filibuster.

“Senator Obama has serious concerns about many provisions in this bill, especially the provision on giving retroactive immunity to the telephone companies. He is hopeful that this bill can be improved by the Senate Judiciary Committee. But if the bill comes to the Senate floor in its current form, he would support a filibuster of it.”

~ Obama Spokesperson Bill Burton on 10/23/07

Q: Can you discuss your position on the reauthorization of the FISA bill?

HRC: I am troubled by the concerns that have been raised by the recent legislation reported out of the Intelligence Committee. I haven’t seen it so I can’t express an opinion about it. But I don’t trust the Bush Administration with our civil rights and liberties. So I’m going to study it very hard. As matters stand now, I could not support it and I would support a filibuster absent additional information coming forward that would convince me differently.

~ Hillary Clinton at press availability in Colorado 10/23/07

I wish these two statements had been worded stronger. Clinton’s in particular is full of holes and barely counts as support giving how easy it would be to slip out of. Obama on the other hand will actually need to show up if he is going to offer any support. I am pleased that they were willing to go on record to support the filibuster and our Constitution however. Any support is much more than I can expect from the other side of the isle. They cant seem to destroy the Constitution fast enough.

*UPDATE 10/24/2007 4:55pm ~ William*

Richardson has thrown in his support on this important issue.  With any luck enough of our Democratic leaders will join in and be able to really make a difference.

There can be no compromise on personal rights and privacy. I urge my Democratic primary opponents, and every Senator, to stand up and state loudly and clearly — without any equivocation — that he or she will not pass any bill that grants retroactive immunity to companies that willingly aided the Bush administration in violating the law and spying on our own people.

Source: firedoglake.com

George W. is now asking for more money to fund the Iraq war. I was just listening to him on Countdown making it seem as thought Congress doesn’t really support our troops as they fight him on every spending and supplemental spending bill. He comes off as so self righteously indignant that anyone could ever deny our troops money for the equipment they need.

The thing is, BILLIONS of dollars have been lost, mismanaged, or otherwise unaccounted for since the illegal invasion of Iraq. Thousands of weapons and munitions have disappeared and the recipients of extraordinarily large government contracts (Halliburton anyone?) have failed to account for large portions of their expenditures.

The president balked at insuring this nation’s CHILDREN because of the price tag, 35 billion dollars over 5 years for 10 million kids. He apparently has no such concerns about throwing millions more away to corporate thieves and incompetents.

This morning MSN news ran this article, it seems that the group who was supposed to train and provide equipment for Iraqi police officers somehow cannot account for MOST of the money they received, over 1.2 BILLION dollars. In fact, DynCorp’s accounting books were in such a mess that the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction couldn’t even finish the evaluation. The State Department asked them to come back at the end of the year once they get things more organized. To defend themselves the State Department agreed that they could not reconcile the accounting for the period of February 2004-October 2006 and that it would “take three to five years” to “fully review and validate invoices” for that period; however, they had made significant improvements from October 2006 on.

On top of this, it was revealed earlier in the year that DynCorp had purchased hundreds of trailers for Baghdad that were still sitting in storage years later. They also spent 4.2 MILLION dollars on “unauthorized work” this included an Olympic sized swimming pool in Iraq and guess who paid for it? Yup, tax paying US citizens, how nice.

MSN News ran this story in February of this year detailing how federal auditors had found 10 BILLION dollars of wasted or unaccounted for money in Iraq. (This includes the millions spent on DynCorp’s swimming pool and unused trailers.)

And who can forget the 100 MILLION dollars that went missing from Paul Bremer’s Coalition Provisional Authority? Or the 9 BILLION dollars Bremr’s group awarded to Iraqi ministries that is unaccounted for? What is sad about these “oversights” is that it was Iraqi money trusted to the US to handle transparently for the good of Iraq reconstruction.

Recently we heard about the thousands of weapons to disappear in Iraq, 190,000 AK-47’s and pistols to be exact. In 2005 the UN issued a report that revealed 109 sites of “material that could be used to make biological or chemical weapons and banned long-range missiles” had these things taken from them. Although they couldn’t track where the weaponry had gone they were able to tell that most of the items taken could be used to make chemical weapons or missiles. In fact, 85% of the equipment to make missiles was missing.

So, not only are we engaged in an illegal war killing innocent Iraqis and our soldiers, we are padding the pockets of US corporations with illegal incompetent handling of contracts. This isn’t news to those of us who are paying attention. It is however, something that a many Americans don’t realize. When Bush/Cheney uses their same rhetoric of fear and persuasion insisting that the Democrats are horribly unpatriotic for not funding the troops it works on the American people. They hear the lip service they become indignant they want money sent to their troops!

The question is now how do we get America to wake up to what their taxes are really going to and demand that this president’s strategy, accountability, and role be changed? We need to demand that this administration explain exactly why the troops don’t already have the equipment that they need, especially in light of the waste that is occurring exponentially in Iraq. The democrats, despite heavy pressure from their base to stop funding, have approved every bill for funding of the war for fear of causing our troops more danger.

The answer isn’t to throw more money in this quagmire, it’s to demand accountability for what is there now and ensure that our troops are getting what they need ahead of anything else (like swimming pools, hotel stays, and unused trailers).

I have been a strong supporter for Clinton for quite a while. I feel that after 8 years of far right extremism the best thing to unite the country is a moderate President. Hillary offers a moderate position, something that I feel will help heal the rift that Bush has created in this country while at the same time pissing off the radical right who can’t admit that aside from one stained dress Bill was an excellent president. Hillary has a strong record and I support her positions on basically everything so while I think she falls short of ideal, she is very appealing.

But every time I get good and settled in with Hillary as my candidate something happens to make me question myself. Lately that something has been Chris Dodd. Most importantly his recent blocking of the amnesty laden domestic spying bill (read more about this here) has forced me to consider him as a serious candidate. Dodd has single handidly stood up for justice by fighting against any domestic spying bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies who assisted in the illegal spying on US Citizens. A vile practice that we now learn started well prior to 9/11.

Chris Dodd has placed a hold on the bill and will even filibuster if Harry Reid follows through on his promise to ignore the hold. This kind of leadership in defense of our rights is exactly what is needed from the Democrats and I would like to see more than just Joe Biden step up and offer their support. This is what we have been asking from our elected representatives when we sent them to Washington. Stand up for our rights, and fight against an evil and oppressive right wing movement that threatens our way of life.

This in addition to having very solid policy ideas and an excellent record of leadership and experience makes Chris Dodd a very good candidate for president. If you would like to watch his short video and sign your pledge to support Chris Dodd’s defense of justice go check out his campaign website here. I also urge everyone to let their candidates of choice know that you support Chris Dodd’s hold and ask them to do the same.